


Inside Out And Upside Down

by TiredPanAndNotAFan (orphan_account)



Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types
Genre: Adam is Lawrence's biological father, Alternate Universe - Character Swap, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Antagonist Charles, Antagonist Lydia, Barbara has Delia's role, Beetlejuice goes by Lawrence, Beetlejuice has Lydia's role, Charles has Juno's role, Delia and Maria are in lesbians together, Delia has Barbara's role, F/F, F/M, Juno has Emily's role, Juno is dead, Lydia goes by Blackheart, Lydia has Beetlejuice's role, Maria has Adam's role, Miss Argentina's name is Maria, NOT BEETLEB@BES, Why Did I Write This?, bisexual Delia Deetz, it's a mess, morally ambiguous Lydia Deetz, sapphiosexual Miss Argentina | Receptionist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-30 05:13:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21422743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/TiredPanAndNotAFan
Summary: Once upon a time there was a house on a hill. In this house there lived a couple of lesbians, Delia and Maria Argentina. They lived happily, constantly ignoring the nagging lack of something or other, until they fell through the floor and died. After that, Adam Maitland moved in with his son, Lawrence, and their "In-Home-Moral-Support," Barbara. When a mysterious she-demon who calls herself Blackheart shows up, the Maitland-Argentina household is thrown into chaos, but it just might be for the better.ORRoleshuffle AU where Delia is gay, Juno is dead, Charles is a toxic father and Lydia is an attention-seeking emotionally unstable demon. have funALSO FULL DISCLOSURE IT'S A FIC ABOUT DEATH
Relationships: Adam Maitland/Barbara Maitland, Adam Maitland/Juno (past), Beetlejuice & Lydia Deetz, Delia Deetz/Miss Argentina | Receptionist, Not Beetleb@bes - Relationship, familial Beetlejuice & Adam Maitland
Comments: 11
Kudos: 33





	1. Once Upon A Time

**Author's Note:**

> TW: harassment, implied miscarriage, minor self-loathing, IT'S A SHOW ABOUT DEATH
> 
> i want to write modded songs for this

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: DEATH obviously, implied miscarriage, BJ-like antics

Once upon a time there was a house on a hill in a charming little town in Connecticut, there lived a happy couple that went by the names of Delia and Maria Argentina. Maria was an ex-model and self-proclaimed beauty queen that now owned a salon in town. Delia was an artist who loved making sculptures to place around the house. The looked somewhat similar, they were both tall and red-haired, so they often got confused for sisters or cousins, but they were in no way related (they checked) and loved each other very, very much. Together they worked on restoring the old house, and they were happy as any couple could be.

except sometimes they weren't happy but no one needed to know that, did they? When Delia was crying, Maria knew to leave it alone. She knew she couldn't replace what her wife was missing.

But that was besides the point! Delia loved her sculptures and her crystals and Maria, and Maria loved her salon and her sewing studio and Delia! the Argentina household was (mostly) complete, and they were perfect for each other! someday they would foster or adopt a child, but not now, definitely not now.

To have a child, Delia would need to get a stable job, and Maria would need to get the salon off the ground, and the stairs creaked, and the windows were drafty, and they just weren't ready for that yet.

(Delia had been ready, with her now-dead husband, but the car crash ruined that.)

They still had their whole lives ahead of them, they were only in their early 30's. That could wait, they still had all the time in the world!

But then they didn't.

One day, when they were dancing to an old calypso song, the floor under the rug gave out. Both of them fell to their deaths that day, although they did not realize it, not at first. This was because a dirty girl in a red-and-black striped dress and bright red hair took the only thing that would tell them.

"Hey, look at this, it's the Handbook for the Recently Deceased! What a useless pile of propaganda sh*t." She tossed the book from one hand to the other, before grinning. "You guys wanna see a play? Puppet-style!" She waved her hand and the fireplace of the old house lit, she floated over to it and started making the book "talk."

"Mwiss Bwackheawt, what hawppens when books die?"

"I dunno, little book, do you wanna find out?"

"Nawt weally-AIEEEEEEEE!" The girl in the dress screamed in place of the book as she tossed it into the fire. Somehow, the screaming continued as she burst out laughing, wiping a tear from her eye. When she recovered, she landed back on the ground, putting her hands on her hips.

"Sometimes puppet shows are sad," she drawled, her eyes glinting. Suddenly, she perked up. "The cute lesbians are gonna come back up soon, I gotta hide. Don't you dare rat on me, you little pricks!" She disappeared in a puff of red smoke, just as the Argentinas made their way out of the basement. Maria crouched down in front of the hole, leaning forward a bit, Delia prepared to pull her back if she fell.

"That looks quite nasty, it's a miracle we did not get hurt," she commented, her accent making her t's sound sharp and making her words lilt like a melody. (it was one of the things that made Delia fall in love with her in the first place.) She stepped back from the hole and looked around for more potential damage.

"It was the universe's will that saved us from the fall, we have good karma!" Maria laughed at her wife's antics, giving her a peck on the cheek. She frowned, lacing her fingers with Delia's.

"The repair is going to cost a fortune, _mi amour_, I don't believe we have that kind of money."

"I can pick up a shift at the salon and sell some of my crystals. We'll make it through this together," Delia promised, kissing Maria. Suddenly, though, her attention was caught by something else. "Maria, dear, was the fireplace lit while we were dancing?"

"I... don't believe so."

The two made their way to the fireplace, carefully stepping around the hole in their floor. Both seemed to sense something was off, as they were clinging to each other for dear life (well, not quite) and shuffling forward together. they stopped right in front of it, when Delia noticed something.

"It's not warm, why is it not warm!?" Delia, being just a little bit of an airhead, stuck her hand a little too close to the fire. Before Maria could pull Delia's hand away it_ caught on fire._

For a solid second, they both just stared at it, their eyes widening, before Delia let out a shriek. The wives jumped away from each other, Delia flapping her hand wildly.

"OH MY CRYSTALS MY HAND IS ON FIRE! OH MY GOD!" Maria was frantically searching for something to put the fire out with. "IT BURNS! IT BURNS, OH MY GOD IT-- wait, no it doesn't," Delia trailed off, staring at her flaming hand in a mixture of wonder and horror. Maria reached out a hand experimentally, and the fire, indeed, had no temperature. Now that they both thought about it, nothing seemed to, really. They couldn't feel the draft from the windows or the warm places where the badly-insulated heating system ran through the floors. The floors themselves weren't creaking, either. They both reached the same conclusion, turning to each other. Maria clasped Delia's flaming hand in both of her's, effectively putting the fire out. The looked into each other's eyes--What they saw there, they couldn't tell--and collapsed into each other.

"I don'-- I don't think we survived that fall," Delia said, her voice trembling.

"I don't think so, either, _bonita_." Together, they processed what that meant. They were dead, dead as Maria's fabrics in her sewing room upstairs, as dead as Delia's crystals, as dead as the the wood that the old house on the hill was made of. As it sunk in, the couple moved to cradle each other on the couch (thankfully, they could still sit on it) when they were startled by a female voice coming from behind them.

"Aww, isn't this cute! A couple of newly-deads. Poor things, you've got no idea what's going on, huh?" The voice was mocking and gleeful-sounding, completely pulling Maria and Delia out of their trance. They turned to see who the voice belonged to, and nearly fell off the couch when they saw.

She looked like a teenage girl, all except that she was floating four feet off the ground, her eyes were yellow with red pupils, and there were multiple spots of what looked like black mold on her face and what they could see of her neck. She wore a black-and-red striped ruffly dress, with a black fabric heart stitched in the place opposite to where it should biologically be, stained in places with things Delia and Maria would rather not think about. Her fingers were tipped with long, sharp nails with chipped black nail polish. Her hair was bright red, piled on top of her head in a messy ponytail with her bangs hanging over her face, choppy and matted. When she grinned at them, they saw that she had a collection of fangs and a definitely-not-natural black-and-red striped tongue.

"Boo," the floating girl jeered , making the the deceased couple scream.


	2. I'm Dead, You're Dead, Let's Help Each Other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Whole Being Dead Thing Part 2 except Lydia Blackheart Deetz traumatizes Local Gays Maria and Delia Deetz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was hard to do holy F*CK  
TW: talking about death, brief alcohol mentions, borderline harassment, slight religious language, Maria and Delia not liking Blackheart when she's trying to help ;w;  
TELL ME IF I MESSED ANYTHING

Delia and Maria scrambled off the couch, clinging to each other, and ran to the other side of the room. The girl in the red dress pouted and floated to the ground, her hair momentarily going from bright red to blue. Sooner than it left, though, the red was back, and the girl walked up to the frightened couple, extending her hand.

"Hi! I'm dead, you're dead, we should help each other out!" When neither woman moved to shake her hand, the girl frowned and put her fists on her hips. "I didn't scare you too much, right? Can you two still talk?... Helloo-oo?" She waved her hand in front of their faces, Delia slapped it out of the way. The girl stepped back, the tips of her hair going yellow. "You don't gotta be rude," she accused, crossing her arms and floating an inc or two above the ground.

"What's going on? who are you?" Maria carefully untangled herself from Delia, stepping towards the floating girl. Said girl cackled, flipping over to float on her stomach.

"Isn't it obvious? I'm--" her hairstyle reformed itself to Tracy's from Hairspray. "--The new ghoul in town~!" She sang the last bit, then her hair went back to normal. Spreading her arms wide, they went on, spouting nicknames. "I'm a spectacular spook! The effervescent ectoplasmic every-ghost-wants-to-be-her-babe! The demonic dame with all the fame! The absolutely positively practically perfect _Ghost with the **MOST!"**_ Tiny red-and-orange fireworks exploded behind her, the lights in the house flickering. Delia, evidently, was still confused.

"But... what's your name?" The girl's hair turned blue at the roots and yellow at the tips. She floated to the ground, sitting and folding her arms, pouting like a little kid.

"I'm not allowed to say it. It's a curse or sumthin'." The couple stood there, now one on either side of her, unsure of what to do. Thankfully, they didn't have to do anything, because she sprung up again, her hair back to red. "ANYWAY! I wanna help you two! SO!" The girl clapped her hands twice, and, out of nowhere, a hat appeared on her head and a whistle on a string tied around her neck. The doors opened and a dozen cheerleaders streamed in, surrounding the girl. The cheerleaders clapped in a pattern like the opening of _Hey Mickey_, and the girl blew her whistle in two short blasts. If Maria and Delia didn't know better, they would think that they were about to be a part of a musical number. As it turns out, they didn't know better.

"Ready? OKAY! HI!" The cheerleaders picked up the girl so that she was sitting on their arms, waving a tiny red flag with a "B". Somehow, the couple heard _music_ backing her up. "I'll be your guide! I'll be your G-U-I-D-E to the OTHER SIDE! Don't go to the Netherworld," the girl said, pointing towards the ground. Delia skittered back to Maria

"_NETHERWORLD!?_" Delia and Maria yelled in unison, making the girl smack her forehead with her hand.

"Did I say Netherworld? Nev-er-mind. I'm the B to the L to the J-F-U and JESUS I can't spell!" The cheerleaders threw the girl into the air, and she hung there, suspended, and danced to the cheerleader's chanting.

"HI! She'll be your guide! She'll be your G-U-I-D-E to the OTHER SIDE!" The girl suddenly appeared next to the Argentinas, startling them by yelling.

"LET'S ALL GET NAKED!"

_"NO!"_

"Eh, worth a try!" The girl winked, making the couple shudder. "I'm the _B_ to the _L_ to the _A-C-K_ to the _H-E-A-R-T, **YEAH!**_"

"What is _happening," _Delia cried, clinging to Maria.

"I understand this is a lot to process, BUT!" Blackheart shouted, pulling a chalkboard out from behind the cheerleaders and a meter-stick from inside one of their pom-poms (God knows how), pointing to a badly drawn diagram. "The _good news_ is you and your spouse died in your _own house,_ that gives you_ clout,_ that means the two of you should _stick around!_" She shot into the air, flying around and squeezing the Argentinas in a hug, which was quickly broken. "Lucky for you I _dropped by!_ Yeah, you seem like _nice guys!_ A little on the _National Parks _and_ rich red wine side!_

"As for me, I've been scarin' for millennia, I'm the BIO-EXORCIST, givin' houses enemas!"

"Push out all the breathers, you can breath at ease," the cheerleaders sang, converging around Blackheart. When she emerged, she was wearing something akin to biblical robes.

"Jus' stick with me, I'm like a **Ghost-Zombie Jesus!**"

_"Ghost-Zombie Jesus!" _The robes were gone with a snap of her fingers, replaced with the striped dress. She also suddenly had a large microphone.

"And I do it for the love of it! Money? Yeah, who give a sh*t! I think we're the perfect fit! _C'mon, let's make out a bit!_" Blackheart jumped towards Maria and Delia, intending to kiss them, but they separated at the last moment, leaving the demon to fly between them and into the wall, all while the cheerleaders sang back-up.

_"Yeah! Dead!"_

"It's the perfect day to die, cuz' THIS GAL happened to be _passing by,_" Blackheart sang, when the lights suddenly popped and fizzled out, leaving the demon and the cheerleaders to be illuminated from underneath by an ominous red light, a disembodied electric guitar playing accenting the action, **"To give you control of your souls, through the _WHOLE BEING DEAD THING!"_** The cheerleaders sang underneath, to a tune similar to Grieg's _In The Hall Of The Mountain King,_ then clapped in the same Hey Mickey fashion as before. **"THE WHOLE BEING DEAD THING!"** The cheerleaders sang, their pitch rising to nearly a scream. **_"OH YEAH!"_**

The lights blinked back on, the cheerleaders disappearing in a puff of red smoke, leaving Blackheart, the Argentinas, and the big hole in the floor that somehow hadn't been there for the course of the song but was now back. Blackheart smiled brightly at the couple, as if expecting applause.

Maria and Delia did not applaud. They clung to each other and backed away. Blackheart's hair turned blue at the roots, but the Argentinas were not paying attention. They were scared out of their minds, and although they didn't know it, they same thought passed through their heads at the same exact time.

_This is going to be one hell of a long afterlife._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GIVE ME FEEDBACK PLEASE  
ALSO GO TO MY OTHER BEETLEJUICE FIC AND YELL AT ME TO WRITE IT CUZ I DONT WANNA

**Author's Note:**

> im gonna loose all my motivation for this the second I publish this chapter so yell at me to write more maybe please <3<3


End file.
